Criminality and Violence as Socio-Economic Factor in Nigeria: As Portrayed in Festus Iyanyi’s Violence

Violence against the woman in Africa has been taken up by the feminist writers as a major issue for a prolonged thesis in the crusade for women liberation from men. The agreement that women suffer abuses in a patriarchal society remains valid. Indeed the general assumption is that men exploit women sexually and economically. Some writers have identified that violence against the woman or any other member of the society is caused by social problems caused by class system and capitalist arrangement of the society. To this class of writers what matters is how to use ideological art to influence the socio-economic situation of the people. In this article, the researchers investigate how the socio-economic conditions of the masses lead them into violent crimes. The researcher uses Marxist Literary Criticism to explain that the capitalist oppression, subjugation, exploitation and alienation of the masses make them to violently react against their political and economic oppressors. Ultimately the researcher observes that the spite of violence and criminality in Nigeria is caused by social factors of inequality and uneven distribution of National Wealth. It is observed that the elite and capitalists commit various type of crimes to sustain themselves and to maintain their Status quo. Crime and violence killing is on the increase in Nigeria because of economic interest of the capitalists in the military, priesthood, politics, public and private enterprises. Using Marxist Literary theory the research suggest that the social gap between the poor and rich need to be closed so that there will be mutual coexistence of different classes of people in the society.